


Baby, You Rescue Me

by Luddleston



Series: Cross the Stars for You [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 21:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14173527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luddleston/pseuds/Luddleston
Summary: "Alright, team, let's head in, pick up the squadron, and get out before this turns into a firefight," Shiro said, "they're on a Galra-occupied planet, but they're not fighting Galra, so we want to avoid casualties—"That was about when the staticky distress call reached the lions.Voltron gets an S.O.S., Shiro doesn't expect it to be Matt.





	Baby, You Rescue Me

**Author's Note:**

> For an anonymous prompt on Tumblr asking for angsty shatt with one of them getting hurt on a mission! This is pretty much as angsty as I get...

The castle, with its long-range scanners, picked up the distress call before Voltron, even though the lions were closer to the pinpoint location. Shiro glanced over the readouts from the S.O.S.—rebel squadron, on an intel-gathering mission that must've gone sideways. Coran must've pinged them because they were the closest Coalition spacecraft within range, so Shiro felt obliged to help out. 

Well. Maybe not the closest, but they were the fastest, period. 

"Alright, team, let's head in, pick up the squadron, and get out before this turns into a firefight," Shiro said, "they're on a Galra-occupied planet, but they're not fighting Galra, so we want to avoid casualties—" 

That was about when the staticky distress call reached the lions. 

_"...we've got injuries on our side—"_ Nyma's voice. _"Matt took a pretty bad hit—"_

Shiro about-faced in Black and laid on the thrusters, pushing them as hard as they'd go. The Paladins had all seen Allura's files on the lions, all knew how they maneuvered, but nobody had ever actually _seen_ the Black Lion move that fast. Shiro reached the planet before Lance did in Red, which surprised even him. 

The rebel ship was easy to spot, incongrously gray among the technicolored tropical plants littering the surface of the planet, the local structures painted to match. A plume of smoke pointed out their location like an arrow, which may have helped the Paladins zero in on them, but also turned them into a sitting target. And it probably meant their ship was totaled. 

Pidge reached them third, Allura and Hunk following close behind, all of them circling the area. The reason they hadn't sent Voltron on this mission in the first place was because the lions were too large to land anywhere inconspicously and without creating major damage. 

"I can get down there," Pidge said, sounding as panicked as Shiro felt, "let me go down there and get him, c'mon, Shiro, you _have_ to—"

"Do it," he said, not even bothering to take a moment to think of another strategy. 

How bad was it? Did the rest of Matt's team even know what to do with a seriously injured human? How much time did he have? 

"Let's give them some support from up here!" Lance turned and fired on the Galra fighters, which had taken off as soon as Voltron was visible through the atmosphere. Shiro wordlessly followed, white-knuckling the controls, pushing away his lion's concerned prodding. He knew what Black was asking him—Shiro never reacted this poorly in battle, but now he found himself unable to keep his aim steady, firing and missing simple fighters, probably piloted by _sentries._

He barely spoke, listening intently to the comms, waiting on Pidge, waiting on Nyma to contact them again, anyone. Thankfully, Pidge had cloaked the Green Lion on entry, and none of the fighters had peeled off to follow them in. 

Pidge's cloaking was so good, though, that Shiro could see the Green Lion about as well as the enemy fighters could. He thought he saw a disturbance in the forest canopy that might've been Green landing, but then there was a series of fighters coming for him, and he had to pivot in midair and turn his attention to them, slicing them in half with Black's jaw-blade. It wasn't his usual clean line down the middle of a formation, but he was a little steadier. 

Pidge came through on the comms as he was dodging more laser fire, returning the blasts with a powerful roar from Black. "I've got everyone!" Shiro saw the green lion shoot past them, like a bullet headed straight for the castle, no time to slow down and help them win a fight. Good. 

"Pidge, what are the injuries on your end like?" Shiro asked, as professional as he could possibly get when his insides were constricted with panic. Hunk took out another fighter on Shiro's six, because Shiro had, apparently, lost the ability to fight and talk at the same time. 

There was too long a pause. 

"It's bad," Pidge said, voice too somber. "I told Coran to get one of the healing pods ready." 

The visor on Shiro's helmet fizzled out so he could press a hand over his mouth, muttering a wounded, _"fuck,"_ into his palm, his thumb pressing too hard against his jaw. 

"Go back with them," Lance said. 

"No, I—"

"Dude, you're not exactly doing great out here, either," Hunk added, "you'll be more help there, especially if any of the fighters decide to tail Pidge." 

"Besides, we're quite capable of finishing this up ourselves," Allura said. It was true; she froze an entire cluster of fighters at once as punctuation, and they'd be more than equipped to take out the stragglers still hovering around the surface. 

The green lion had already landed when Shiro reached the castle, and as soon as Black was docked, he left the cockpit at a run. They'd be heading from the docking bay to the cryo chamber. Shiro mapped the route in his head, knew there was the barest chance of him meeting them in the middle before they got Matt into one. 

He sprinted all the way there, and when he reached them, there was already a healing pod ejected and prepped, but Matt was braced between Pidge and Nyma, standing, but leaning heavy on the two of them. Shiro knew it was just adrenaline keeping him up by now. He had his cloak haphazardly folded up and pressed over a wound on his side. Shiro couldn't see the extent of it behind the thick layers of fabric, but the blood running from the corner of Matt's mouth meant nothing good. 

"Matt!" Shiro called, because he couldn't help himself, taking all three steps to the center of the room at once, crowding into their space as soon as he got close enough, taking Matt's hand in his palm. "Are you—" he started, and then realized it was a stupid question. Matt was sweating, but his face wasn't flushed. 

"Takashi...?" 

"Hold him still," Coran said, "we probably can't get him into one of the bio-suits but we need to get the armor off him." 

"I've got him," Shiro said, nodding to Pidge, who was silent and white-faced, ready to burst into tears as soon as nobody was watching too close. "It's gonna be okay," he said, not sure if he was talking to Matt or Pidge. "I've got you." That one was said with his head pressed against Matt's sweaty hair, holding him close while Coran unstrapped his breastplate, letting it thump to the ground. 

By the time they got Matt stripped down to the bottom layer of his clothing, he wasn't responding anymore, leaning his weight fully on Shiro, barely conscious. Shiro had taken up keeping the pressure on the wound, but he had to let go to lift Matt fully into his arms and carry him over to the healing pod, where Coran was giving the data some last-minute checks. 

"You're going to be fine," he said, but his voice caught, because he worried Matt was too far gone to hear him. Coran was saying something, helping Matt out of his arms, the blue-white screen of the pod shutting with a glimmer and turning opaque. 

Shiro sat down heavily on the stairs, a hand over his face, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, because it dulled the sting of the tears that were uselessly gathering in his eyes. 

He heard a thump as someone armored took a seat next to him. "He's going to be alright," Pidge said, having become one of the first of them to fully trust the healing pods. Shiro knew, logically, that once they got someone in one of those things, they were guaranteed to come out of it whole, but every time someone had to be put in one, he worried, unecessarily, that there would be some kind of malfunction. 

"You…" Shiro paused and sighed, suddenly weary, "you shouldn't be the one who's comforting me." 

"Yeah, well." Pidge kicked his foot. "You're the one who's crying." 

"It's alright," Shiro said, not bothering to deny the crying thing. "I'll be fine, too. 

— — — 

Matt woke back up a few days later, and, because Shiro had fallen asleep watching over him, fell directly on top of him.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @luddlestons, and find other shatt prompt fills @shattsunday!


End file.
